Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Umbria, Timeless and Enduring

We knew the landscape before we came here. We had seen it in London, Paris, New York. It is the world that opens beyond casement windows in Umbrian and Tuscan paintings of the early Renaissance, a background, never there for its own sake, never the center of interest, sometimes no more than an exercise in perspective, a world where those dreaming Madonnas and attendant saints could not really be imagined as ever setting foot, but intensely real to the imagination of the spectator, the walls and bell towers of some fortified town, the folded ranks of hills, with their dark, slender cypresses, as sharp and symmetrical as spear blades, and their steep terraces of olive and vine.

It is six years since we bought the house here in the hills south of Lake Trasimeno in western Umbria, halfway between Florence and Rome, but that sense of delighted recognition has never worn off. It is 600 years since the paintings were made, and that there should be any recognition at all says a great deal about the nature of the land and its history. These high-walled towns that surround us, Spello, Bevagna, Bettona, Montefalco, Corciano, Panicale, grew up in times of insecurity difficult now for us to imagine, a period of extreme violence and rapacity, constant strife between Guelph and Ghibelline, the forces of Pope and Emperor. As usual, it was the peasants who suffered most. They took refuge from marauding armies within the walls of the towns. The war zones shifted, the people came out to their ruined fields, patiently began again. Those centuries of conflict are over, strife takes different forms in Italy now, the hill towns of Umbria sleep within their walls, most of them hardly changed in appearance -- too high, too far away, too difficult of access for the dubious benefits of modern development and often protected by strict building regulations. The terraces of vine and olive below them, narrow and steeply sloping, are not much changed either. Much of the work on them is done as it always has been: on foot, by hand and laboriously.

Identical terraces surround us now, in our house here, with its five acres of land -- warmly colored, fertile land, as good for zucchini as it is for roses. It was a typical Umbrian farmhouse when we bought it, the ground floor used for keeping animals, storing grain, making wine, an outside stairway to the upper floor, where people lived. The small village where we get our mail and buy most of our groceries is a couple of miles away, our nearest neighbor a 10-minute walk up the hill. There is no local industry and almost no traffic -- nothing that could really be called a road anywhere near us. The sort of silence reigns here that is only deepened by sound. Sounds are seasonal events, the nightingales in May, the crickets a bit later, the cicadas in the full trance of summer, the ruffling wind from the north, the tramontana, that brings cold weather. Sounds the Etruscans listened to, long before the Romans came; and before the Etruscans the shadowy Umbri, original inhabitants of the region.

This constant feeling of intimate connection between the present and the past has always been of first importance to me as a writer. My themes, the sort of meanings that interest me and wind through the texture of my novels, are concerned with the influence of history and landscape on human character and behavior and the ways in which old patterns are repeated in new forms. I feel privileged to be able to live in a place that is beautiful in itself and at the same time so suited to my temperament and imagination. I look out from the windows of my study across a broad valley planted with corn and sunflowers to the foothills of the Apennines, a landscape shaped and molded by many centuries of human habitation. Some three miles away lies the reed-fringed southern shore of Trasimeno, the biggest lake on the Italian peninsula, always a surprise when you come upon it, by turns leaden and sullen, softly luminous, brimming with light, responsive to shifts of weather too delicate for the eye to register.If you stand here on a summer day and look northward, beyond the three green islands of the lake, you can make out the pale shapes of the hills above Tuoro, half hidden in the haze. Here, on a summer morning 22 centuries ago, Hannibal waited in ambush with his Carthaginians, fell on the Roman legions under Gaius Flaminius as they passed through the narrow defile between lake and hills. Floundering in their heavy armor among the marshy verges of the lake, the Romans were slaughtered in their thousands -- it was one of the bloodiest defeats of their history. The local place-names still testify to it: Sanguineto, where the blood ran, Ossaia, place of bones. Tranquil places today, no hint of violence about them. . . .

The nearest town of any size is Perugia, capital of the province, about half an hour's drive from home. If you walk along Corso Vannucci toward the cathedral you see on your left the great curving facade of the late-medieval Priors' Palace, with its beautiful patterning of pink and white stone, its rows of lancet and mullioned windows. Here is housed the National Gallery of Umbria, recently extended and enlarged, containing what is arguably the greatest collection of Umbrian masters anywhere to be found.

In one corner of the cathedral square, there is a pasticceria with a few tables set outside. This is where I generally have my coffee when I come to Perugia; in fact it is my favorite corner of the city. On one side there is the north flank of the cathedral with its Renaissance loggia and a section of Roman wall below. Immediately before you is the circular Great Fountain with its marvelous decorative sculptures of the seasons and their labors, done in the late 13th century by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano. And on your right the southern side of the Priors' Palace, the massiveness of the architecture lightened by the asymmetry of the levels at the sides of the fan-shaped staircase. With the pigeons strutting about on the cobbles and the life of the city going on around you, this is a place where an hour can go by like a minute.

The Priors, 10 in number, were drawn from the merchant class and they governed the Commune of Perugia in the time of her greatness, the 13th and 14th centuries, when she was a free republic. Things got worse after that, much worse, with first the murderous power struggles of the noble families, then a long Papal tyranny. The administration of the Priors was perhaps the most enlightened that the city knew until the 19th century. But enlightenment is a term that has to be understood relatively. In the labyrinth of medieval streets behind the Palace, many of them alleys so narrow that their upper stories almost meet overhead, there is the Via della Gabbia, the Street of the Cage, so called because an iron cage was hung high on the wall, and criminals were locked up in it and left to the sun and the wind. You could hear them crying day and night like mad people, says a contemporary chronicle. These cries would have come to the ears of the sober merchants as they balanced their books in the Cambio, the counting house alongside the Palace, with its superb coffered ceilings and paneled walls and frescoes by Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino, the city's greatest artist. What is probably the only Perugino self-portrait in existence hangs in the Audience Room.

Contrast of another kind can be found by strolling over the way from the Cambio to Sandri's Cafe, which is long and narrow and has an atmosphere of Central Europe of some earlier age. They make a most wonderful apple strudel there -- a very un-Italian thing. The owner is Viennese and very old, and there is a general fear that the secret of the apple strudel will not be passed on.

Just around the corner, in Piazza Raffaello, there is the Church of San Severo, which has a fresco in the shape of an arch, divided in two by a horizontal line. The upper painting is by Raphael, the lower by Perugino, who was Raphael's teacher. Raphael was commissioned to do the whole work, but halfway through he was called to Rome by the Pope and never returned. He died young, amazingly so when one thinks of the volume and achievement of his work, at 37. The teacher outlived the pupil and Perugino, then in his 70's, completed the painting in 1521, two years before his own death. For anyone interested in Italian painting, it is a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the work of these two masters.

One of the great advantages of living in a place, any place, as opposed to merely visiting it, is that you have stores of time at your disposal; time to discover what you particularly like, time to return to it and return again. The lower basilica of the Church of St. Francis at Assisi (now open again to the public after some damage to the vault caused by the recent earthquake), with work by Giotto, Cimabue, Lorenzetti, Martini, all more or less contemporary, a truly astounding concentration of genius. The Campo in Siena, seen from above -- the perfect early-Renaissance city square. And since man does not live by beauty alone there is a trattoria in Castiglione del Lago, on the western side of Lake Trasimeno, which serves the best pizza -- in my view at least -- to be found north of Naples. The true pizza, the thin-crust sort. The place is an old wine-cellar with splendid vaulted brickwork ceilings and some enormous ancient vats still lining the walls. In summer you eat in the courtyard under pergolas of wisteria and grapevines; in winter -- temperatures commonly fall below freezing in December and January -- there are log fires and the warmth of the great stone oven in which the pizzas are made. One of these, perhaps preceded by bruschette and accompanied by one of the light local wines, and you have a true feast. It is a good place to visit, in any case: built on a promontory that thrusts out into the lake. You can stroll below the medieval city walls -- there is only a footpath, no road -- climb to the castle, which affords splendid views, the silver-green of the olive groves, the warm reddish brown of the earth, the changing colors of the lake.

Another favorite excursion, especially if one wants to avoid cars for awhile -- and Italy has more of them per capita than almost any other country -- is to the Isola Maggiore, largest of the three islands in Lake Trasimeno. The ferry goes from Passignano, on the eastern side, and the crossing is short -- about 20 minutes. The one village on the island is known for its lace-making -- delicate white webs of lace are displayed on either side down the main street. Once this is left behind there is silence and peace. Even at the height of the holiday season you can feel alone on these wooded slopes, a seclusion that perhaps St. Francis was looking for when he came here, something like 700 years ago on a visit of 40 days, during which time he is said to have consumed just half a loaf of bread. If you follow the path that winds upward to the island's highest point you come to the Church of San Arcangelo, which has a crucifix painted by Bartolomeo Caporali, another fine Umbrian painter.

Places where you like to eat, places where you can walk and think in peace, you get to know them in the course of time. Also important to know is a source of good wine. We drive north to Greve in Chianti to a vineyard there and spend an agreeable time talking about wines, tasting them and learning something about the process of making them -- an extremely difficult business. Then a leisurely choice and home again, well provided -- at least for awhile. If there is time we can stop in one of the numerous thermal pools scattered throughout Tuscany and Umbria, bathe in the warm springs, perhaps have a meal before getting back on our way.

The trips one makes, the home one comes back to, these are the patterns that shape our lives. You move somewhere else and the shape changes. But we are not thinking of moving.

Perugia: The city is well supplied with hotels in all categories, among them:

Hotel Brufani, set on a hill in the center of the city overlooking the Umbrian valley, at 12 Piazza Italia (telephone: 075-5732541; fax: 075-5720210), which has 27 rooms and suites. Double rooms range from about $250 to about $330, including a buffet breakfast. Dinner for two in the restaurant, which might include Norcia ham (a regional specialty) with melon, potato ravioli with fresh tomato and basil and a main course such as duck breast with red wine and honey, is about $100, with local wine. Meals are served on an outdoor terrace during warm weather.

La Rosetta, also in the historic center at 19 Piazza Italia (telephone and fax: 075-5720841), which has 94 rooms; doubles, including breakfast, are $110. The hotel is a for-mer palazzo, with a courtyard for dining in warm weather. The menu changes daily, but might list wild boar prosciutto, ricotta ravioli with walnut sauce and grilled chops or steak. A meal for two, with local wine, is about $60.

Locanda della Posta, nearby at 97 Corso Vannucci (075-5728925, fax: 075-5732562), which has 40 rooms, is another former palazzo that has been a hotel for 400 years. Doubles, with breakfast, range from $115 to $165, depending on season. No restaurant.

For snacks, Pasticceria Sandri is at 32 Corso Vannucci (075-5724112); an espresso and a generous slice of apple strudel is about $4. The cafe is closed Monday.

Assisi: The town, as befits a tourist and pilgrimage center, has dozens of hotels and restaurants. The following two are typical:

The Hotel dei Priori is installed in a 16th-century building in the center of town at 15 Corso Mazzini (075-812237; fax: 075-816804). There are 34 rooms; doubles, including a buffet breakfast, range from $80 to $145, depending upon the classification of the room and the season. Dinner for two, which might include mixed antipasti, tagliatelle with walnut sauce and breast of turkey flavored with Marsala, is about $50, with local wine.

Hotel Umbra, just off the main square at 6 Vicolo Degli Archi (075-812240; fax: 075-813653), has 25 rooms installed in three 16th-century townhouses. Double rooms range from $100 to $115, including breakfast; a meal of regional specialties is about $70 for two, with local wine. Lunch and dinner are served in a pretty garden in warm weather. The hotel is open from March 15 to Jan. 15.